Report: U.S. Daily Video Viewing Time to Triple by 2013

Time spent watching TV, other video content expected to equal time spent sleeping.

TORONTO - Americans' daily consumption of television and other video content is expected to triple by 2013, equaling the amount of time spent sleeping, according to a report published Wednesday by Solutions Research Group.

The average U.S. consumer who is at least 12 years old and has Internet access now spends 6.1 hours a day watching some form of video entertainment, the report states. The average was 4.6 hours a day in 1996 and is expected to grow nearly 35 percent to about eight hours a day by 2013.

Currently, television viewing time - including live, DVR and video-on-demand viewing - accounts for about 64 percent of daily entertainment intake across all age groups studied and 42 percent among consumers between the ages of 12 and 24.

Television's share of daily entertainment intake is expected to decline from 64 percent to 47 percent by 2013.

The report's authors attribute the expected rise in video viewing to factors such as widening access to and use of Web video, increasing availability of lower-cost laptops, and growing use of mobile video devices and Internet-enabled devices such as the Apple iPhone.